Franklin Templeton has expanded its tokenized real-world asset push in Asia through a new distribution partnership with Hong Kong-licensed HashKey Exchange. Under the arrangement announced Monday, HashKey is offering the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Liquidity Fund on its Earn channel, giving professional investors access to tokenized exposure to short-dated U.S. government money market instruments and U.S. dollar cash assets.
The product is restricted to professional investors and is not available to the general public in Hong Kong. HashKey’s regulated venue supplies the distribution and Asian client base, while Franklin Templeton supplies the fund management layer. The two firms framed the rollout as a step toward broader tokenized offerings. Franklin Templeton SVP Chetan Karkhanis said the partnership could expand “beyond tokenized money market funds into other tokenized products over time,” leveraging HashKey’s multi-jurisdictional presence across Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Dubai and Bermuda.
The launch builds on Franklin Templeton’s November 2025 debut of Hong Kong’s first tokenized money-market fund, also under the same OnChain brand. That initiative was among the first under the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s Fintech 2030 plan.
Tokenized real-world assets continue to grow rapidly. Total RWA value reached $38.2 billion as of Aug. 23, up from $20.6 billion a year earlier, according to RWA.xyz data. U.S. Treasury debt accounts for about $15.6 billion of that total. The announcement also follows broader tokenized Treasury settlement activity, including live settlement between Ondo and JPMorgan.
Still, practical details such as minimum investment size, settlement cadence, redemption windows and whether fund units trade on a secondary market remain unclear. Those mechanics will determine whether the product behaves more like a cash token or a traditional fund wrapper.
